The Lake

Dumbleyung Lake

Dumbleyung Lake, also widely known as Lake Dumbleyung, is a salt lake in Western Australia. It is located at 33°20′00″S 117°39′00″E, in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.

A Sunday picnic at the lake in 1923 near the white rocks at the beginning of Bairstow Drive. Image sourced by Beth Bartram from the Battye Library.

The explorers Henry Landor and Henry Maxwell Lefroy are usually credited with the discovery of Dumbleyung Lake, although it appears to have been shown on a map in 1839 with the name Kondening Lake. Grazing leases around the lake were first granted to George Kersley in 1875.
Dumbleyung Lake received world recognition when Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record on it on 31 December 1964, travelling at 276.33 mph (444.71 km/h) in his boat Bluebird K7. A granite memorial to Campbell can be seen at Pussy Cat Hill, a prominent feature and vantage point to view the entire lake area.
In recent times, the increased soil salination has made the area unsuitable for grazing. Today the lake is mainly used for aquatic recreation. Despite the extreme salinity of the lake, it provides a habitat for many varieties of water birds, and since 1963 has been protected by the Dumbleyung Lake Nature Reserve.
The lake is recognised as a DIWA wetland as it is a drought refuge for waterbirds and a moulting area for the Australian Shelduck.

Source: Wikipedia

The Monument

At precisely 3.43pm on the 31st December each year light passes through the granite and travels across the brass plaque on the ground below.

Information about the Lake

Lake Dumbleyung is 13km in length, 6.5 km in width, has a perimeter of 42 km, an area of 5200ha (52 square kilometres) and a capacity of 200GL.